1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer network-based on-line comparison shopping system and method of interactive purchase and sale of products, as well as component subsystems, modules and aspects of such system, and constituent approaches and methodological aspects associated with such method of interactive purchase and sale of products.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the proliferation of networked computer systems, including the World Wide Web (Internet), there has been a corresponding evolution of and interest in electronic commerce.
Electronic commerce (or e-commerce, as it is sometimes called) involves on-line accessing of information about purveyed goods and services, and the associated capability to electronically effectuate a transaction involving selected goods and/or services (collectively referred to herein as “products”). Although this medium of electronic transactions is still in its infancy, the development of encryption and other, security features has propelled this form of commerce from a small-scale emergence to an ever-increasing level of prominence in industrial transactions as well as consumer shopping and on-line purchases.
The art therefore has developed a variety of forms of transactional sites for on-line purchase and sale transactions, and these continue to evolve. Aside from obvious security requirements, there is a need for purveyed products and services to be quickly and efficiently assessed by the prospective purchaser for decision-making purposes, and for the transaction to be similarly quickly and efficiently effectuated once a decision has been made. Further, there is a need for information for the making of a purchase decision based on comparison of the purveyed products, as to their features, such as overall price, unit price, volume discounts, quality, and/or source. Furthermore, there is a need for enabling consumers to view such information in a readily assimilated format, such as a grid or matrix format that may be proprietary to the shopping site. Additionally, there is a need of a prospective purchaser for access to his or her prior purchase history, to facilitate repeat purchases or simplification of the decisional processes involved in a current purchase transaction.
It accordingly is an object of the present invention to provide a computer network-based on-line comparison shopping system and method of interactive purchase and sale of products, that meet the aforementioned needs and objectives.
Relative to the system and methodology of the present invention, art relevant to the invention includes the following.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,178 issued Nov. 24, 1998 to Joseph Giovannoli describes a computerized quotation system and method in which buyers formulate requests for quotation and transmit them to a computerized network which broadcasts the request for quotation to prospective sellers based on filter conditions set by the buyer and/or seller and/or computer network operator. The filter-compatible sellers' responses are communicated to the prospective buyer either over the communications network or via other communication means.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,692,132 issued Nov. 25, 1997 to Edward J. Hogan describes a commercial transaction system for interaction by a user of a personal computer with Internet-based merchant computers to conduct cashless transactions, in which the amount of the transaction is deducted from a balance and the balance can be reset.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,757,917, issued May 26, 1998 to Marshall T. Rose, et al. discloses a network-based commercial transaction system for communication between qualified user-sellers and user-buyers, utilizing an authorization code and encryption to achieve secure transactions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,835,712, issued Nov. 10, 1998, to Fred DuFresne, discloses a system and method using a template, accessible to both client and server, for constructing Web source text. The source text includes HTML tag extensions for implementing dynamic Web environment. The tag extensions are nested and grouped to form scripts to perform specific tasks, such as state construction and on-line data arrangement. Each tag extension or script is expanded and replaced with data value to be embedded within a traditional HTML tag. A processor is employed to process templates and execute tag extensions therein, and produces pages in pure HTML form for displaying by any Web browser.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,314, issued Feb. 3, 1998, to Andrew C. Payne, discloses a network-based sales system which includes at least one buyer computer for operation by a user desiring to buy a product, at least one merchant computer, and at least one payment computer. The buyer computer, the merchant computer, and the payment computer are interconnected by a computer network. The buyer computer is programmed to receive a user request for purchasing a product, and to cause a payment message to be sent to the payment computer that comprises a product identifier identifying the product. The payment computer is programmed to receive the payment message, to cause an access message to be created that comprises the product identifier and an access message authenticator based on a cryptographic key, and to cause the access message to be sent to the merchant computer. The merchant computer is programmed to receive the access message, to verify the access message authenticator to ensure that the access message authenticator was created using the cryptographic key, and to cause the product to be sent to the user desiring to buy the product.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,825,881, issued Oct. 20, 1998, to Bryan Colvin, Sr. teaches a system for conducting commerce over a large public network such as the Internet which facilitates communications between a merchant, a customer, and a bank or credit card processor.
Commercial on-line shopping sites having comparison shopping capability include the following Web sites: www.acses.com; www.bottomdollar.com; www.buyingguide.com; www.comparenet.com; www.consumerworld.org; www.jango.com; www.junglee.com; and www.shopfind.com.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a computer network-based on-line comparison shopping system and method of interactive purchase and sale of products, that provides comparison shopping capability via a dynamic database permitting access by a prospective purchaser to the products and/or services of a variety of vendors and products, by selecting a variety of attributes for custom shopping.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a searchable database and on-line shopping system comprising same, in which a search of the database yields a uniformly productively result (a definite selected result), in contrast to the state of the art database systems, such as those conventionally used for word searching, which can result in a “dead end” result (e.g., a search that has no matches, or a system request for clarification).
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a computer network-based on-line comparison shopping system and method of interactive purchase and sale of products, that permits a prospective purchaser to construct custom order templates, optionally based on or incorporating information from prior purchase transactions, in a quick and easily effected manner.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be more fully apparent from the ensuing disclosure and appended claims.